"Everybody is a True Believer. Everybody has a little nugget they're convinced of that is the opposite of the nugget on the other side. And they're convinced it's fact."

"Listen to advice. You don't know how many writer's conferences I've taught at where at least half the audience fights all the conventions of the field."

"I really hate those books where the murderer turns out to be somebody you never heard of who pops up in the last chapter."

"You've either got to find a way to make your continuing characters insteresting without making them maudlin or overwrought, or you've got to put more emphasis on the suspects."

"The legal principle placing the burden of proof on accusers rather than the accused can be traced back to Second and Third Century Roman jurist, Julius Paulus Prudentissimus. Yet, this ancient concept, which forms the legal and moral cornerstone of the American judicial system, is quickly being undermined in the name of 'national security.'"

"It's not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions."

"I shall go the way of the open sea, to the lands I knew before you came, and the cool ocean breezes shall blow from me the memory of your name."

"One hardly knows where, in the history of science, to look for an important movement that had its effective start in so pure and simple an accident as that which led to the building of the great Washington telescope, and went on to the discovery of the satellites of Mars."